Among the scenarios that will be raised at the seminar will be residents' passive and active resistance, residents locking themselves up in homes and rooms, and even threats of suicide and shooting.
Children running away between homes and/or hiding in large buildings, mothers and babies, medical emergencies, cars on the roads, packing up the homes, and many other possibilities will have to be taken into account as well. "It is simply a nightmare," one resident said (see below).
Taking part in the daylong exercise at the Air Force House in Herzliya are personnel of the IDF General Staff, commanders of army divisions that are to take part in the expulsion and uprooting, Police Chief Moshe Karadi, and other regional police commanders. The IDF Operations Division is overseeing today's discussions.
Also to be discussed today will be simultaneous threats from the north by Hizbullah, terror attacks in Gaza during the uprooting, and the like. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has reportedly ordered that the Palestinian Authority be informed that any terror attacks during the expulsion will be dealt with "very forcefully."
The security forces are preparing a six-level deployment to implement the disengagement plan.
The forces will be deployed in six circles around the areas to be abandoned to the PA. The outermost ring will comprise policemen deployed at every large intersection in the Negev and Lachish areas. They will direct incoming and outgoing security-forces traffic, and will check - and sometimes turn back - civilian cars entering the area.
The fifth ring, manned mostly by IDF Military Police, will be deployed close to the Gaza Strip fence, with the purpose of isolating the strip.
Next closest to the action will be "offensive forces" that will encircle the areas to be evacuated. These will be large forces comprised of infantry, as well as armored and engineering units, whose job it will be to protect the Israelis from Palestinian terror attacks.
Smaller armed forces will comprise the third ring, and will be stationed where they are now. Their job will be to protect the area to be evacuated.
The innermost rings will be those closest to the threatened residents themselves. The second ring - units of the IDF - will isolate each community, and will control the roads between each town.
Finally, a force will be entrusted with the actual uprooting of the residents. Its actual composition is not yet clear, but it will apparently comprise unarmed policemen, military police, female soldiers, and medics.
The Israel Navy will "close off" the maritime approaches to the Jewish communities.
It is not yet known when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to declare the areas a "closed military zone." It is feared/expected, however, that the announcement will result in an immediate influx of disengagement-opponents to the area.
"It is simply a nightmare," one resident said, echoing the sentiments of many of his neighbors and other Israelis. "Is it conceivable that entire towns and neighborhoods, encompassing people's entire lives, should just be wiped off the face of the earth?"
With tongue in cheek, the speaker, whose home serves as the base for his 29 grandchildren - about half of whom live in Gush Katif - as well as for the posessions he and his wife have amassed over several decades, added, "If they see the week of work that awaits them just to pack up our house, they'll give up the entire idea very fast - not to mention the hundreds of other houses here..."